Bitcoin is the Real Electronic Cash – Merkle Conference 2016

Thank you Hello everyone ! I want to make this presentation in French because it seems to me that the culture's minister, Audrey Azoulay, is committed to maintaining a top position that the French-talking communities have in the world

I myself learned French at school and I feel really in ease to speak with you in Molière's language In Voltaire's one… But… not on the « Bitcoin » subject… (Applause) It tried to translate some of the words using Google I asked, translate for me the word blockchain and google said blocks [french] and that seemed a bit strange and it said [french] block chain and I thought isn't it la block chain and I asked what is block chain and google said [french] I asked for the translation of Bitcoin and it said [french] and finally I said how do I explain the DAO to a French audience and they said just say [french] and at that point I quit so I will deliver the rest of this presentation in English and I apologize because I cannot really deliver in your beautiful language that I spent many years learning because of more than 20 years of lack of practice so I want to talk to you today about a form of payments peer-to-peer payments that are prolific a form of payments that are near instantaneous transaction free direct from person to person secure convenience and have been around for thousands of years in that form of payments is cash but cash won't be around for thousands of years more cash is going away and we haven't quite considered the implications one of the beautiful things about cash is that it enables a true peer-to-peer person-to-person economy cash is the way you transact in your local community cash is the way you pay your small shop your music teacher cash is the way you pay the local farmer credit cards don't work like that credit cards and bank payment systems and mobile money in paypal and venmo they're not peer-to-peer they're not person-to-person their person to corporation to corporation to corporation to person when did we invite all of these corporations to participate in our commerce as intermediaries when did we invite them into every conversation it feels the same but it isn't when I go to the local bakery and instead of cash I give them a credit card to me it feels the same the experience from my perspective is person-to-person and instantaneous convenience and without fees but that is not the experience that the Baker has the Baker doesn't get paid the Baker doesn't get paid sometimes for 30 days sometimes not at all because fraud has occurred and when they do get paid two percent of it goes to someone who didn't add any value to that transaction they just processed it that is if that someone that corporation decides they want to pay the Baker because if you come from a place like Greece where I come from or from Cyprus Argentina Venezuela Kazakhstan Ukraine or many other countries in the world one day the banks say no not your money anymore you thought it was your money it was alone and we just defaulted and can't pay you back there's something really magic about cash because as a system of commerce it has allowed us for thousands of years to interact quickly conveniently with other people without surveillance by governments without corporations in between without fees without any of those things and now we stand in 2016 on the cusp of eradicating in cash you hear the propaganda cash is for criminals because after all who would want to pay other people when it's so easy to just pay corporations that Bay corporations that pay corporations that pay people I didn't invite them into my transaction they invited themselves and I don't like having to make a system of commerce where it is automatically assumed that as a human being my main role is to be a consumer not a producer of goods not a provider of services because to be a provider or producer I have to receive permission apply for merchant accounts pay fees it's so much easier to just be a consumer it's so much easier to assume that from now on everything that I ever transact will be produced by a corporation and my role is to just consume and what does that do to our society it destroys community it destroys small shops it destroys freelance entrepreneurs sole proprietors workers it means that every interaction you have is not with the person who made your food it's with a person employed by a corporation that outsources the making of your fruit somewhere else and when I bought meat from my butcher if one day my butcher put wood chips saw wood fiber into my meat I would go back and I would go what the hell just happened why is there wood chips in my needs but if an executive at a corporation who aren't a very prestigious mba sees a proposal from a consultant that says fiber enhancement of meat products plus two percent profit and they sign someone a thousand miles away puts wood chips in your meat and when you go back to the butcher they say I don't make it complain to the corporation we're destroying community by disengaging commerce from something that happens between people and introducing in every transaction the idea that you must always trade through a corporation that is your intermediary that you must always lend not pay deliver credit not value cash has some unique characteristics cash is a system that is a push transaction meaning that I'm not authorizing someone to take money out of my pocket I take money out of my pocket and I push it to the other person and the money they get is the money I just pushed they don't get to come back ten days later and make another debit from my pocket how did we suddenly change that every system of payment in our society as a pull system how did we suddenly change where every transaction I make I am authorizing someone not only to take money now but maybe take money again and again or maybe lose my access controls and some hacker can take money again and again cash is a bearer instrument that means the value is in the instrument itself it's not a promissory note it doesn't represent a promise that you will be paid later it is a bearer instrument which means you are paid now and the thing about promises is that promises can be broken cash doesn't represent the issuance of debt it represents the transmission of value cash is instantaneous you get the value and can spend it immediately not 30 days from now let me ask a quick question if I wanted to give you five euros for coffee how many of you will take visa today? No one? You mean the only way i can pay other human beings is with cash the thing that we are about to make illegal because apparently an ancient technology for human payments could only possibly be used by criminals the definition of a criminal is anyone who isn't a corporation, pretty much so what is Bitcoin what are these open global blockchains that we're talking about what is so special about Bitcoin or Ethereum or any of the other systems that are open global borderless neutral payment systems that allow open access open innovation access without permission participation from anyone anywhere in the world Bitcoin was created by Satoshi Nakamoto and in the title of his paper he said a peer-to-peer system of electronic cash cash this is not an electronic bank account this is not an electronic bank this is not a digital credit card this is not an electronic payments network this is electronic cash and it has all of the unique characteristics of cash that make it so precious it is peer-to-peer i can pay anyone in this room five euros equivalent in bitcoin like that not here to corporation to peer person to person directly i can engage in trade with every person in my community directly when i pay someone it is a push transaction which means that they receive the value immediately and they cannot charge me again for more value later they have no access or authorization to my accounts I didn't transfer access i transferred value a bearer instrument that transmission happens near instantaneously you can spend a Bitcoin transaction five or ten seconds after i send it to you it happens for almost no fees at all just a few pennies just to cover the network costs and it allows us to do everything that cash has allowed us to do for thousands of years oh except for one thing this form of cash i can send to kuala lumpur in five seconds, why? why the hell not? because I want to I can send it across borders I can send it to a farmer in Kenya to a fisherman in Indonesia I can send it to someone in South Africa, why? why the hell not? it's my money I want to trade with the world I am a citizen of the world and with a form of electronic cash I get all of the benefits of cash plus I can email it across the world in a few seconds bitcoin is a very important technology because it enables us to re-engage with a concept of using money as a form of payment between people not corporations it allows us to engage in commerce without surveillance without corporate interaction without blocks on my accounts without freezes and fees and compromises and theft and corruption it means that my money is not sitting in a bank being re-loaned to some war criminal somewhere using it to bomb some country it's my money not somebody else's money it's not a loan without interest to the banking system it's my money it's cash in my pocket this is an interesting principle really the idea that you can bring money back to three basic core principles: Liberté, fraternité, égalité thank you

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